Free Office Software

For those looking for a real alternative to Microsoft Office as a wordprocessor/spreadsheet/presentation/database application, the newly released OpenOffice 3.0 is a fantastic product. And it's FREE!

The user interface is far neater and cleaner than Office (in my opinion), it's a genuine all-in-one application so moving data and content between functions is just neater and it's now available for Windows and Mac operating systems.

If you're hesitant about switching, try the two in parallel for a while and see which you prefer. OpenOffice can import and save Office documents so you won't have any issues with other people opening documents that you have created.

If you want to be picky, there is no integrated email and web-browser but Mozilla Thunderbird and Firefox are equally free and equally as good (better in some ways).

Go ahead and give it a go. It's free, so what do you have to lose? If you feel guilty about downloading free software, you can always make a donation to keep the development going...

Ever tried a podcast?

No longer just a geeky way of listening to 'new marketing gurus', podcasting is easily accessible to the masses, is fun, and allows you to listen/view what you want, when you want to.

What is a podcast? A podcast is a series of audio or video files that are distributed over the Internet through Web feeds, to portable media players (like ipods) and personal computers.

Unlike Broadcasts, that send out a radio or tv programme at a pre-determined time, podcast can be downloaded and listened to or viewed at any time. All you need is a computer and Internet access and you can choose and download, mainly free, programmes to listen to at your leisure.

If you have a portable media player, you can listen to these podcasts wherever you are: at home, in the car, on the beach. Anywhere.

We'll be looking at podcasts and podcasting in more detail. When you've tried them and got the benefits, you'll be hooked.

Thoughtful stuff

Blogging has come a long way and there are some great bloggers out there that are happy to share their wealth of experience and knowledge with you.

One such person that I've recently come across is David Meerman Scott and his blog at http://www.webinknow.com. David knows a lot about how to use the 'net for marketing and PR and I'm currently working through his book 'The New Rules of Marketing & PR'. I'll post a review when I've worked my way through it.

It takes some self belief to put your name and personal brand out on the Internet. David has done so very successfully and his blog and books have some great tips that can help you and your business. Go and take a look..

We'd love one each. Please.

Sometimes, something comes along that you just need to get your hands on. Mobile browsing is very much in vogue but a pc in a phone is just too much of a compromise for me. To enjoy the Internet, you need a screen and a keyboard. So that you can see and type.

This little fella has been about for a while and, in it's latest form, it really does look the must have accessory this Xmas. If anyone feels generous and would like to send some our way, please feel free to do so. If you just want to read more about a fabulously useful gadget, look no further than here.. http://pocketsurfer.co.uk/

Kerry Katona's YouTube fame

I know that Kerry has enough fame and she has loads of media interest but this week's interview with her on This Morning and the subsequent YouTube activity is worth a mention.

It's difficult to get viewing figures for This Morning but estimates are around the 2million viewers (please do let me know if you have more accurate information). Whether Kerry was drunk, drugged up or just sleepy is not the point here, you can read gossip mags for that story; what's interesting to me is how quickly the interview appeared on YouTube and then the subsequent growth in viewing figures.

This Morning broadcast the interview on 22.10.08 and, within hours, the first clip was published on YouTube. A quick scan through YouTube results indicates that there are over 50 other postings of the same interview.

When I came across it on YouTube yesterday morning, the day after the broadcast, the total number of views for the clips on YouTube was around 100,000. I have just checked again this morning and the total views total over 3million! That's 50% more people than may have see the original broadcast.

If you've not seen the interview yet, here's a link to one of the postings : Kerry Katona on This Morning. At the time of publishing this blog, the views for this post stood at 1,026,762.

Another great example of content on demand and the power of viral marketing.

We love iPlayer

For those of you that haven't come across it yet, BBC iPlayer lets you view previously broadcasted programs at your leisure, when you want to to watch them.

For those with busy lifestyles or bad memories as to when programs are broadcast, it is, on the whole, a great service. Some people have criticised the user interface and others the fact that programs are only available for 7 days.

But is this not just being massively critical?

We take our hats off to the Beeb for launcing and developing this service and it gives us a real glimpse as to what WILL be the future of content delivery. If the service is extended to archive content as well as current programs, we'll trully be entering the age of any content on demand.

For anyone not had a chance to view the future yet, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ and get yourself hooked.

Free Notebooks

You know, the web is just a great place to get lots of free stuff and one of the best I've come across recently is giving away Free Notebooks.

We're not talking laptops here we're talking online notebooks, a place where you can store all your really useful notes, comments, web pages, screengrabs, photos and just about anything else that you like really and you can then access those notebooks from anywhere, pc, mac, mobile..

The site is evernote.com and you can get going in minutes. You have a massive monthly allowance and can upgrade to a pro-service for $5 a month. Just try the free one and see how you go. I'm hooked, let me know how you get on.

Will you be my friend?

Since we were apes, we have always had a strong desire to belong to social groups and to network (communicate) with others. Throughout our existence we have grouped ourselves into specific groups and communities with other, like-mined, people for support and to share experiences.

The Internet has allowed social networking activities to evolve on a scale that even 20 years ago was unimaginable. Social network service providers, like Facebook, allow new groups to form and evolve on a global scale within minutes. You can now join special interest groups that share experiences on growing, say, minature tomatoes or a general group that links school-friends or family members.

Other popular sites that you may have heard about include MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, YouTube, Friends Reunited and, more recently, Twitter. All these cater for slightly different groups, ages and needs but they all have one thing in common; they provide a service that allows anyone to keep in touch with, and grow, their own network of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances.

Although the main growth in the use of these sites is by the young who generally accept, and are very comfortable with, these technologies, there is a growing acceptance by the older generation who have been introduced to the technology through Friends Reunited (now with an estimated 21million members!).

People tend join social networking sites for all kind of reasons:

As personal time becomes even more scarce, they are a great way to keep in touch with your friends, especially as friend-networks are now geographically diverse. The days are long gone when the friends you grew up with still live in the same village as you - even I have childhood friends that are now spread-out all over the world. Social Network sites make keeping in touch really easy and fun.

Many businesses use social networking sites to keep in touch with their employees, suppliers, sub-contractors and even customers.

Teenagers use a multitude of new media technologies, including social networking sites, to keep in touch with their friends. Bebo and MySpace are favourites with this age group and features that include photo-albums and polls make these sites interactive, great fun and very addictive.

As well as the social aspects of these sites, they also provide more serious applications; special interest groups and politicians use them to spread the word, gain support and get feedback on their opinions and policies and businesses are using them as powerful marketing tools – although beware, as negative views spread more quickly than positive ones!

Another type of social network site that has grown massively since their advent is the online dating community. Virtual dating with the goal of finding your perfect partner has evolved from being a sleazy pastime to a serious business. An estimated 1 in 12 newlyweds in the UK initially met online and the fastest growing sector is those aged 50 and up. We usually only hear of the more unusual stories but there are thousands of new relationships starting every day around the world thanks to social networking sites. With the Internet changing so much of our lives, why should the human heart be exempt?

Looking forward, the ever reducing cost of getting online with mobile devices, the explosion in availability of rich content such as music and video, coupled with our ever increasing fascination with technology, will make social networking sites an ever more important point of contact with our chosen social group; with whom we will be able to share experiences, like watch a film, as well as just keeping in touch.

Has the way we make and retain friends changed forever? Hopefully not, but keeping in touch with them certainly has.

(article originally written for out-and-out-living magazine, June 2008)

Google, in a paragraph

Formed in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford maths graduates, Google is today as much a part of the Internet as websites and email. The business was incorporated in 1998 and, within 10 years, was generating $16billion in revenues and employing more than 10,000 people worldwide. The largest part of this revenue is a result of Adwords, Google’s Pay Per Click advertising search engine, a concept developed with Google labs where engineers have, for 20% of their time, the freedom to develop their own ideas.